WoW Forever ship routes: every boat and zeppelin, plus why there are no flying mounts

30-second quick start (TL;DR)

• Stormwind to Darkshore: take the new ship from Stormwind Harbor straight to Auberdine. No more tram, Ironforge, Wetlands run and Menethil boat.
• Boat to Southshore: board at Menethil Harbor. The ship calls at Southshore, then sails on to Auberdine.
• Kalimdor to the Riverglades: the goblin ship leaves Steamwheedle Port on the eastern shore of Tanaris, not from Gadgetzan.
• Horde: the zeppelins run the same three Classic routes between Orgrimmar, Undercity and Grom’gol.
• Flying: there are no flying mounts, and Blizzard said so on stage. Flight paths are the only way you leave the ground.
• Unsure which ship is which? Ask the guard beside the dock. Menethil and Auberdine both have several ships sharing piers.

Three new ship routes: Stormwind Harbor, the Southshore run and Steamwheedle

Blizzard announced the routes at the Found Photographs panel at BlizzCon 2026. Evan, lead content designer on the Classic team, said the goal was to keep travel part of the journey while opening up questing in new areas and making it easier to play with friends, which he called “an incredibly important pillar for this project.”

Stormwind Harbor to Auberdine

Stormwind gets a working harbor in Forever, and its ship sails directly to Auberdine in Darkshore and back. In Classic, a human in Elwynn who wanted to quest with a night elf friend had to take the Deeprun Tram to Ironforge, cross Dun Morogh and Loch Modan, survive the Wetlands road to Menethil and then take a boat. Now it is one ship.

“Humans and night elves, and you dwarves and gnomes in the audience who are Deeprun Tram enthusiasts, now you can rejoice,” Evan said on stage. His point was the starting zones: friends on different continents can meet early without long trips or corpse runs to reach each other.

Menethil Harbor, Southshore and Auberdine

The second route is the one to use for the boat to Southshore. Blizzard described it as a three-stop route that starts at Menethil Harbor, calls at Southshore in Hillsbrad Foothills, and ends at Auberdine. Southshore’s dock sat unused in Classic; it now has a ship.

Players who have ridden it report that the ship runs one way around the triangle: Menethil, then Southshore, then Auberdine, then back to Menethil. That has two consequences. From Menethil, you always stop at Southshore before Darkshore. From Southshore, the next stop is Auberdine, so to get back to Menethil by sea you go through Darkshore first. If you are heading from Southshore to the Wetlands, the other option is the road north through Arathi Highlands and over the Thandol Span.

Steamwheedle Port to the Riverglades

The third route leaves Steamwheedle Port on the eastern shore of Tanaris. At the panel Evan teased it (“Perhaps this ship takes us to somewhere new”) while a map slide drew a dotted line from Kalimdor’s southeast coast to the east coast of the Eastern Kingdoms, and he moved straight on to the Riverglades. That zone, built on unused land east of Redridge, has its own neutral goblin harbor, Powderfuse Port, run by the Powderfuse goblins. Players report the Steamwheedle ship lands there, and like the other goblin boat between Ratchet and Booty Bay, both factions ride it.

The Riverglades covers the mid-30s to mid-40s, so this ship matters most around level 35. You can also reach the zone on foot: a new fork on the road from Redridge to the Burning Steppes leads in.

Every ship, zeppelin and tram route in WoW Forever: 11 routes

The “faction” column is who the docks belong to. In Classic, anyone can step onto any boat or zeppelin, but the guards at an enemy dock will attack you, and on PvP rule sets the other faction will too.

Auberdine is now the busiest port in the game: ships to Stormwind, to Teldrassil and on the Menethil loop all call there. Menethil is close behind, with the loop and the Theramore ship. Read the guard’s directions before you board, because ships for different destinations share the same piers.

Skyborne characters also have their own way off Zephras Isle, their starting zone in the sky. Reports on where each faction’s ship lands do not agree yet, so it is not in this table.

Horde zeppelins are unchanged: Orgrimmar, Undercity and Grom’gol

All three new ships dock in Alliance or neutral towns, and none of the BlizzCon panels mentioned a new zeppelin. The Horde network is the Classic one: towers outside Orgrimmar’s main gate in Durotar, north of the Undercity in Tirisfal Glades, and at Grom’gol Base Camp in Stranglethorn Vale, linked in a triangle. There is still no zeppelin to Thunder Bluff.

The new Steamwheedle ship is the one change that helps the Horde. It is neutral, so a Horde player questing in Tanaris can sail straight to the Riverglades, where the Horde quest hub is Rogmar, instead of riding back to Orgrimmar and taking two zeppelins.

The Southshore stop is the one to be careful with. Southshore is an Alliance town, and the Horde base in Hillsbrad is Tarren Mill to the north. A Horde character stepping off the Southshore ship lands among Alliance guards.

Boats and zeppelins broke on launch night, and portals filled in

Transports were one of the two launch problems Blizzard owned up to. On November 4, developer Josh Greenfield posted that the service that manages “transports like boats and zeppelins” had issues, and that the team “spawned some portals to get us through the night.” He said a proper fix would come the next morning and the portals would be removed, as we covered in our launch night report. If you saw portals beside a dock that first evening, that is why, and you should expect the ships back in their place.

Blizzard also worked on boat rides before launch. In October, associate production director Clay Stone said the team was fixing layering so players “stay with the people you saw on the boat or zeppelin after the loading screen.” In the beta, friends would board together and arrive on different layers. That fix is covered in our layering post.

WoW Forever has no flying mounts, and Blizzard does not plan to add them

This came from the design pillars at the start of the What’s Next panel at BlizzCon 2026, not from a later interview. The first pillar was “Approachable and Familiar,” and the speaker put it plainly: “We believe the world should still feel like Classic. That’s why you won’t find flying mounts. You won’t find level scaling.” Our full post on the pillars has the rest.

The reasoning is the same as the new ships: the trip is meant to be part of the game. Blizzard wants Azeroth to stay dangerous, with preparation and cooperation mattering, and that does not work if you can fly over every camp and road. The third pillar, Journey Before Destination, adds that the team is not planning around level cap increases, so there is no new expansion coming where flying would normally unlock.

Will WoW Forever ever have flying mounts? Nothing is ever promised forever, but this was stated as a founding rule of the game, in the same sentence as no level scaling. Plan your play around ground travel.

How fast travel works without flying: flight paths, ground mounts and boats

The tools are the Classic ones, with a few changes worth knowing.

Flight paths

Gryphons, hippogryphs, wind riders and bats still carry you between flight masters you have discovered. You have to visit each flight master once to learn the point, and most are tied to one faction. The November 3 development notes added gamepad support for ending a flight path early with the Back or Cancel action, and you dismount at the next available flight point. That saves time when you only need part of a long route.

Ground mounts and riding training

Forever moves the cost of your mount into riding training, the way Burning Crusade did, which Blizzard explained alongside the Legacy system. You pay the riding trainer, and the mount comes with the skill. “Riding skill updates” was also on the list of Forever features shown at BlizzCon. The level 40 ground mount moves you at 60 percent speed.

Tauren run as fast as a mount

The October 26 racial rework changed Plainsrunning to 2 percent movement speed per stack with a 60 percent cap, the same speed as a level 40 ground mount, on foot. The trade is that it no longer adds anything while mounted. Our racial rework post has the details.

Boats and zeppelins between continents

For crossing the sea, use the table above. With the Stormwind Harbor ship, an Alliance player can go from Elwynn to Darkshore without touching the Wetlands, and the Steamwheedle ship gives both factions a direct line from Tanaris to the Riverglades.

Four travel mistakes that cost you a boat ride

• Mistake: Taking the Menethil ship to reach Auberdine fast. Fix: It stops at Southshore first. From Stormwind, use the Stormwind Harbor ship instead.
• Mistake: Looking for the Riverglades ship in Gadgetzan. Fix: It leaves Steamwheedle Port on the eastern shore of Tanaris, not the inland town.
• Mistake: Boarding the first ship at a shared pier. Fix: Auberdine and Menethil each have more than one ship. Ask the guard by the dock where each one goes.
• Mistake: Riding to Southshore on a Horde character. Fix: Southshore is Alliance. Horde players in Hillsbrad want Tarren Mill, reached by road or by flight path.

FAQ

Source and credit

Route details come from Blizzard’s BlizzCon 2026 panels, its WoW Forever development notes (November 3 update) and its own Classic travel guide, and from launch-night posts by Blizzard developers. Screenshots are from Blizzard’s BlizzCon 2026 presentation and WoW Forever footage, courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment. Where we say players report something, it comes from players on live realms and the beta, and we will update the page once we have checked it ourselves.

Our coverage: the three new ship routes, no flying mounts or level scaling, the Riverglades and launch night.